On today's Internet, domain names assigned to individual Internet sites are required to be unique. Such names are registered by name registration services responsible for assuring that a name proposed for one site is not in prior use by another site. Many of these services offer ancillary services; e.g. redirection services allowing communications to a destination/host site (a site subscribed to that service) to be addressed with a shortened name associated with the service.
For example, a contemporary service with the domain name “http://go.to/” allows a customer with a long domain name—e.g. “http://milleniumgoldrush.com”—to effectively employ a shorter name such as “go.to/goldrush.com”, which cause such communications to be sent initially to the service and redirected by the service to the destination. However, shortened name terms used in such redirection processes also are required to be unique; i.e. “goldrush.com” could not be used if it is already registered to someone other than the owner of the destination site. Thus, selection of shortened names for such redirection usage is almost as difficult as registered names directly associated with destinations.
We believe that a need exists for allowing such shortened names to be assigned on a non-unique basis, provided that they can be applied in a unique and unambiguous manner.